Dan’s puzzle

I had solved Dan’s Somber Armageddon Pillows puzzle, but couldn’t get it yesterday because I made an error getting the coordinates into the GPSr.

On the way there, I stopped for Kendall’s Treasures (9:49 AM). It was a quick find.

I misled myself on what to look for with Somber Armageddon Pillows (10:20 AM). I thought this was the one where Dan did a particular hide style. After quite some time I happened to notice something else different.

On the way home, I made another attempt at Road’s End (10:33 AM) and found it immediately.

Some local caches

This morning I hunted a few local caches. Started with Livermore Larupper (9:47 AM) which I found difficult because there were many bushes to consider. Finally found it.

Next up was Inman School (10:08 AM). I never realized that the Eucalyptus grove was the site of an old school. The cache was well constructed and good camo, but I found it immediately.

I searched for Road’s End, which should have been a no brainer, but I just overlooked it. For some reason, 580 was jammed, even this late in the morning.

Finding Double Sunset (10:57 AM) took me a while. The GPSr had me off by about one tree. Finally spotted it.

I had figured out where Yes, Dear (11:40 AM) was located, and decided to go see if I could handle the terrain rating. So, made the hike and found it easily. Had to do a little climbing, but it wasn’t bad.

Lost in Livermore

Dan was over and happened to pull up geocaching.com and see that there was a new cache listing nearby. We went together to find Hanso foundation: Geocaching Experiment. I found it, but we were STF by just a few minutes.

Paradise Preserve

Before driving home from Paradise, we went to this little preserve in Magalia. We found an access to the preserve trails, but not the main one, so we ended up not doing the cache series in the order the hider planned. It didn’t make much difference.

Our first one was Upper Ridge Nature Preserve #4 (8:44 AM). The whole series was under tree cover and the 60csx didn’t give as good an error figure as I expected. This made these caches hard and often I had to use the hint. There did seem to be a lot of small poison oak in the area, and I wasn’t dressed appropriately.

Next, we found Upper Ridge Nature Preserve #3 (8:54 AM) near a bridge (which meant water which meant mosquitos). We knew it was near the bridge, but didn’t zero in on it until reading the hint.

Paradise Pine 1 (9:08 AM) was in a more open area which had a horseshoe pit. It was also in amongst a lot of small poison oak. Used the hint to zero in.

Pines Golden Gate (9:14 AM) was pretty easy since it was right at a vehicle gate.

We had a bit of trouble finding the correct trail to get to the next cache, and backtracked a couple of times. We should have just walked through the vehicle gate and down the road. Upper Ridge Nature Preserve #2 (9:39 PM) was near another bridge (and more mosquitos).

Upper Ridge Nature Preserve #1 (9:53 PM) should have been easy. The description seemed to make it clear where it was, but I overlooked it due to poor searching and started wandering around. Karen finally found it.

Feather River Canyon

We decided to take a drive up the Feather River Canyon, but I forgot to get gas in Paradise so had to drive into Oroville. After gassing up, we stopped at the new River Bend Park to get Catch the Dream (9:58 PM). It was pretty easy to find. As I was signing the log, with my back to the road, I heard someone say, "You look suspicious." Ah... caught by other geocachers. Turned out to be the cache owner, Ruby Ridge Rounders, and NIFTSIX.

In the canyon, we looked for Second Step (10:53 PM), which turned out to be an ivy hide (ugh). We couldn’t see any steps or a slab; it was all covered with ivy. Luckily the hint was very good. This location was right next to the penstocks of a powerplant--very big pipes.

Our next stop was at a beautiful creek, rushing with water. We just walked a couple of hundred yards up the road to look for I Love Highway 70, Too (12:34 PM). We looked for a bit, but Karen found it just as I read the hint and figured it out.

Feather Balls (12:48 PM) was easy to find. These are some huge granite boulders kind of stacked together.

The Eby Stomp (1:15 PM) was as far up the canyon as we went. This was an old stamp mill and we had to find the cache and also email some historical information. Wasn’t hard.

We looked for We Love Highway 70, but had no luck. This was up a gated dirt road. Even the hint didn’t help. There was a berry vine in the area, and the hint indicated it was in or near. I really paid the price--that vine drew blood in several places.

Vacation in Paradise

Today we started a much needed couple of day vacation in the Chico, Paradise, and Feather River Canyon area. After driving up, we looked around in Chico for a while, and then drove up to Paradise and checked in to our motel. After getting settled in, I walked across the parking lot to the bowling alley (closed on Sunday) and picked up STRIKE! (4:35 PM)

We went to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant (pretty good Carnitas). Afterwards, I fired up the GPSr in the parking lot and saw a cache less than 200 ft away. Luckily, there was a hole in the back fence and we took advantage of it to get onto the Paradise Memorial Trail (paved along an old railroad bed). I think I used the hint to make quicker work of PMT I "The Big Berry Patch" (7:11 PM)[[ which was a decon container in the crotch of a multi-trunked oak tree -->.

We walked along the trail to the next closest cache, Rail In, but I’m pretty sure we needed to get to a historical maker which was inside a tight construction fence. This was the first time I’ve seen a cache that in addition to signing the log you needed to send some information (like a virtual) to the owner.

On the drive back to the motel we stopped to hunt for It’s a Small Mall After All #6 (7:53 PM). It took a little while, but I finally found it.